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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23698117">(Silence.)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluefisted/pseuds/bluefisted'>bluefisted</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Search. [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M, Modern AU, Mourning, Murder, Nightmares, Severe PTSD, also vagueish description, baby needs a therapist, fits in with the other modern au i wrote awhile back, mentions of suicide w kakashi's dad, pining after a dead lover like you're edgar allen fucking poe, team minato centric with a kkob focus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 18:27:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,295</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23698117</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluefisted/pseuds/bluefisted</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Instead, what catches his attention is the way Obito looks away, up at the ceiling, and whispers so gently into the thickened quiet, "I think you're my best friend, Kakashi."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hatake Kakashi/Nohara Rin, Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Search. [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1717990</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>86</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>(Silence.)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>     "Hey."</p><p>     The whisper is strangely loud when released into the thick silence permeating a darkened bedroom. It's a sound met with no response.</p><p>     "The funeral was tough. You okay?"</p><p>     Another whisper from the same voice - a voice belonging to one Obito Uchiha, a boy of eleven with a voice so recognizable Kakashi thinks he'd know it if it woke him from a dead sleep. For once, it's unfortunate that it didn't. Still, the question is again met with a long bout of silence, interrupted only by the sound of Obito sitting upright in his bed.</p><p>     "...I know you're awake, Bakakashi."</p><p>     Kakashi sighs through his nose, loud and harsh, as a wordless warning. Obito never was good at leaving anything well enough alone, as so many losing fights at school proved - this didn't feel any different. He never could leave anything alone, regardless of who held the struggle, be it a stranger or a companion. He was nosey, and had to pry.</p><p>     "Seriously, that was <em>rough</em> today, and--"</p><p>     "Obito, drop it," Kakashi bites from the other side of the room. He rolls over in his own bed, a twin size mattress sat just opposite of his friend's, turning his back to the older boy in a display of agitated defiance. "Just leave it alone."</p><p>     There's another beat of stillness, and Kakashi furrows his brows and forces his face into the pillow. It had been less than a week since the loss of his father, and less than twenty-four hours since the burial - he was over it all, by now. Processed and noted, Kakashi tells himself, he dealt with it already, and all the emotion he feels now was nothing more than extra baggage. It doesn't <em>matter</em> that he'd been the one to find Sakumo - it doesn't matter that he'd been the first one to find him, hung stiffly from the ceiling fan in his own room, looking every bit as dead as he was. It's a minute detail, much like the one Kakashi thinks on <em>far</em> too often, the one little tiny detail about panicking and attempting to sever the tie with a dulled blade from the kitchen. The sound a rigid body makes when it comes colliding with the carpet. The details don't, and shouldn't bother him. </p><p>     But maybe they do, just a little, because Kakashi wants to scream with frustration at the way his eyes start to burn and his throat starts to close. His eyes burn with tears not yet shed, and with the image of his father's cold corpse hitting the floor. The heat and weight of it is searing.</p><p>     Obito, apparently, already seems to understand this. He sighs back after a minute, not quite mocking, but something close to teasing.</p><p>     "You think super loud, dude." The older boy's voice is soft, comforting, and so <em>warm </em>that Kakashi can't help but bite the inside of his cheek to keep the tears completely held back. He'd not have his pride shattered by Obito, because he's sure that his pride is the only thing he has left to his name. That and his college fund, which between him and the God that he finds completely deaf to his pleas, wasn't worth a whole hell of a lot to him anymore. No one would be there to see the spending of it, the results of it, anyway.</p><p>     Kakashi doesn't answer Obito, though, in fear of his voice giving away his mental state even further. Obito doesn't need to know. Emotions like this are not for boys of his age, but for children far younger. It was pointless, this whole thing was <em>so stupid</em>, but before Kakashi can stop himself he feels his throat betray him in the form of a small, bitter little whisper.</p><p>     "...He just <em>left</em>."</p><p>     This time, it's Kakashi's words being met with silence. The younger boy feels himself grow frustrated, again - he <em>knew </em>he should have just left it alone, should have kept his mouth shut. Obito wouldn't get it anyway. He fists his hands roughly in his sheets, still not facing his friend. He's about to say <em>fuck it, never fucking mind, go to bed stupid</em>, and then he hears the other's voice in the dark. </p><p>     "You know, I bet he had a re--" As soon as it starts, it stops, and Kakashi is grateful for it because if he has to hear one more person say 'oh honey it wasn't you, I'm sure he had a reason', he thinks he might seriously go completely postal himself. Kakashi is grateful for it, and this time does open his mouth to say <em>seriously, forget it before I come over there and lay you out</em> but the words never make it past his teeth, because Obito's speaking again. "...Actually? I changed my mind. I bet even if he had one it was stupid."</p><p>     At this, Kakashi's eyes open, and open fairly wide. Now, he sits up to look at his friend from across the room as if he'd been struck in the middle of a casual sentence.</p><p>     "...What?"</p><p>     "I bet, even if he had one, it was stupid," Obito says again, firm in his choice of words. His eyes, even in the dark, are vivid and unwavering. Kakashi thinks he'd call them striking, if he could recognize the emotion and act of finding beauty in a friend. "What reason's good enough to leave your kid behind? He said he loved you, right? So what the fuck?" Obito spits out the swear like a true kid - spits it out knowing his grandmother was fast asleep by now, and there would be no repercussions for saying a favorite curse.</p><p>     Kakashi stares, just for a second, and wonders if he wants to beat him into a lifelong coma or give him a hug. Still, Obito continues on with his reasoning. </p><p>     "He left you alone. Everybody kept telling you they were sorry today, he had a reason, you'll get it when you're older, blah blah blah. Well, that's crap," Obito's voice carries a hint of venom, and Kakashi realizes now that he thinks he wants to give him a hug. "He left. He didn't even tell you why. Everyone keeps acting all weird around you and saying weird stuff about him when you're not around. You're <em>allowed </em>to be <em>mad</em>, dude. You're allowed to be sad, too."</p><p>     Kakashi rips the sheets off of himself to march the three or four paces to Obito's bed, hands balled up into trembling tight fists. For a second, he goes back and forth between throwing a punch and wrapping arms around him, and judging by the look on Obito's face, he's not sure which one he's going to get, either. </p><p>     "Stop talking about things you don't know anything about," The younger says softly, deciding instead on odd affection instead of violence. He relaxes slowly as Obito suddenly matches the hug in pressure, apparently relieved to live another day. "I'm fine. I don't care."</p><p>     "...You sound kinda like you care. Like you're gonna cry, too. You can cry. Rin told me when dudes cry it makes them look all deep and emotional, which I guess is a good thing." </p><p>     "I'm <em>not</em>," Kakashi almost hisses, burying his face in Obito's shoulder with a harsh motion. "Just because you cry over everything doesn't mean I'm going to. Dad says--"</p><p>     It's at this that both boys stiffen - it's a habit, an old one, but the third slip this week and the circumstances surrounding it is enough to make Kakashi angrily hurl his pride out the window and dissolve into full-on sobbing. It's quiet, but it's <em>definitely</em> still sobbing, tears running rapidly down the younger's face as he tries to control his breathing. Obito is kind, gentle as he tries to console his friend in whispers that it would be okay, he could live here now, remember, Grandma said it was alright, and they could see Sakumo whenever he wanted, even if it meant ditching school. He'd help, they'd bullshit get-out-of-class notes, remember how he did it the once for both of them and Rin? His hands are warm as he rubs Kakashi's back, never once breaking the hug. After a little while, Obito pulls back to look at his friend - the very same friend that's dissolved into watery hiccups and desperate attempts to hide them. He keeps both hands on Kakashi's shoulders, and Kakashi hopes to himself that the other doesn't take them away any time soon.</p><p>     They sit like this, for a bit. Obito seems to be out of words, and Kakashi is much the same, with none to spare unless they are 'yes' or 'no'. Eventually, Obito makes a joke about it being Kakashi's turn to be the crybaby, and actually gets punched in the shoulder for it. It devolves into a fight that isn't one at all, complete with loud shushes, snickering, and 'dude you'll wake up Grandma!' warnings. They laugh, and try to swallow that laughter for hours, until the shadows in the dark of their room have notably shifted and Obito is yawning every two seconds. </p><p>     Kakashi is laid down in his friend's bed, now, back to the wall, settled in the corner of it. His head is against a pillow, a particularly soft and nice-smelling one, and for the first time in a week the younger boy can noticeably feel his shoulders relax. His tension starts to melt slowly but surely, and as he returns one of Obito's obnoxious yawns, he can't help but speak softly. "Hey, Obito?"</p><p>     "Yeah?" The other says, both hands folded behind his head as he lays beside Kakashi.</p><p>     "Thanks."</p><p>     Obito's head whips to the side to look at him, and flashes that smile again. All teeth and lopsided, Kakashi notes, but it reaches all the way up to his eyes. He's too tired to notice that he thinks about Obito's eyes again. Instead, what catches his attention is the way Obito looks away, up at the ceiling, and whispers so gently into the thickened quiet, "I think you're my best friend, Kakashi."</p><p>     Kakashi smiles a smile that's just barely there as he starts to fall asleep, and returns, "Dumbass, you don't have any other friends besides me and Rin." It's a barb sharp enough to earn at least a dumb giggle and a light smack to the top of the head. They fall silent once more.</p><p>     "...Obito?"</p><p>     "Yeah?"</p><p>     "I think you're my best friend, too."</p><p>--</p><p>     When Kakashi wakes up thirteen years later with the taste of raw copper in his mouth and a stomach full of lead, he's not frustrated, just disappointed.</p><p>     Not disappointed in the way that one would be if a party were cancelled, or the way one would be if Guy called and said that it turned out he bought movie tickets for the wrong day, so the outing would have to wait. Not disappointed in the way one would be if, in the middle of a dissociative episode, the meal you cooked burned because you couldn't quite pay enough attention to it. Not quite disappointed in the way one would be if a roommate used all the hot water earlier in the morning, and you had a job interview in less than an hour. Not nearly so strangely mundane, as Kakashi often wishes his disappointment was.</p><p>     No, if he's to compare this disappointment to something, it would be more akin to a widower losing his old wedding ring to the garbage disposal while doing the dishes. It would be more fitting to feel it in the form of going to get married, only to find out your spouse was not waiting for you at the altar. It would be more fitting to imagine it as finding an old scrapbook full of photos and memories you thought were missing, only to lose it in a house fire a day later. Kakashi thinks these would be a more accurate portrayal of the disappointment he feels every morning on waking, knowing that Obito and Rin were two photos he lost to a fire several, several years ago, that never did burn out all the way.</p><p>     Kakashi moves through his day. He goes to work, he comes home, he sleeps, goes to work again, and sleeps some more. He reads between work breaks, between blinks and cigarette breaks, sometimes spicing it up by getting takeout between shifts. It's an easy life. He has friends just as distant as he would prefer to keep them, with exceptions being given to Naruto and Guy, both two people very much interested in keeping in touch. Kakashi often tries to return the favor when energy allows, when he isn't working or sleeping to rid his mind of excess of burden. He knows he sleeps more than he should. </p><p>     Most nights, when Kakashi's head hits the pillow, he's met with familiar nightmares featuring familiar faces. Sometimes, though, he is silently blessed with the brutality of warm memory.</p><p>--</p><p>     "Hey!" Obito calls from a distance, startling Kakashi out of a staring contest with the river they're visiting."Kakashi!" </p><p>     The smaller boy looks over to his companion from his sitting spot on a large rock. It's Obito, again, currently working on getting up out of a mess of riverbed rocks and mud. Obito wipes his cheek with the back of his hand, smearing mud and dirt across his face in the process. His grin keeps steady as he stares down at his hands, walking toward Kakashi while seemingly picking through something sat in one of his palms. "See? I <em>told </em>you I could find one! Obsidian arrowheads are suuuper easy to find."</p><p>     Kakashi snorts, but still watches with rapt attention as Obito holds it up to the sun, tongue poking out from between his teeth as he examines it closely. The younger takes a quick glance over his friend, who's cuffed jeans, old sneakers and denim jacket are equally as muddied and damp as his face. Obito is just as disheveled as Kakashi figured he probably would be, but he can't help but tease him for it anyway.</p><p>     "Rin and her parents aren't gonna let you in for dinner like that. That cabin they rented is <em>nice</em>. They're gonna hose you down, you know," Kakashi says flatly, though he's internally very amused at the thought. "You're gonna have to sleep outside."</p><p>     "No they won't!" Obito yelps defensively, shoving the newly-acquired item into his pocket. Kakashi figures he'll put it on the shelf with all the rest of the arrowheads he's collected, all the other things the older had taken from places they've been. "If I change, it'll be fine! No one'll even know."</p><p>     Obito's grin is wide, bright like the sun and honest. Kakashi quietly wonders what it is about his best friend that keeps him so enraptured. He wonders what it is about those scraped knees, that cracking voice, that makes him feel comfortable and safe, that makes him feel like he wouldn't mind staying in this moment forever, here on rented vacation property in the middle of nowhere. </p><p>     Kakashi watches Obito wipe the sweat from his forehead, and leisurely walk back to the water's edge. He picks up a rock, inspects it for a moment, and hurls it across the surface with little to no technique - a genuine, hope-this-works kind of toss. It flops unceremoniously into the water with a <em>kerthunk</em>, and Kakashi snickers from his spot behind him.</p><p>     "What? You think <em>you</em> can do any better than me, mister oh-so-good-at-<em>everything</em>?" Obito says as he turns to look over his shoulder, clearly finding the other unfunny. </p><p>     "Loads," Kakashi says confidently, hopping down from his perch to search the pebble beach for a suitable candidate. "You suck at that."</p><p>     Obito scoffs, almost pouting. Kakashi can feel him watching as he picks out a rock, flat and smooth, and can feel him watching while he runs his fingers over the surface of the stone. When he decides that yes, it'll do just fine, he holds it up to Obito as proof of his effort and steps up to the ledge. "You have to pick a really flat one," he explains, and now Obito is staring in another sort of way that's not the same as before. He's wearing a look Kakashi can't place - fascination, and something else. Maybe something like wonder. "Flat and thin. The thinner the better."</p><p>     Kakashi weighs the rock for a second before holding it up again, and placing it firmly between his index and thumb. "Hold it like this," he says, handing the stone to Obito. "Loose, but don't drop it. Tight, but don't break it. Get it?"</p><p>     "No," Obito huffs, brows furrowed as he fumbles with the rock in one hand. "'Loose but tight' doesn't make any fuckin' sense, Bakakashi! Do I grab it or not?" </p><p>     Kakashi rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, and huffs. "No, dipshit, here, just-- Give me your hand, stupid," the smaller boy takes Obito's wrist in a firm grip. "Relax your damn hand, let me move your fingers." </p><p>     Obito does as he's told with something of a funny look on his face. He doesn't look at Kakashi anymore, and the tips of his ears have reddened like they'd been sunburned. "This is dumb, I didn't even ask for you to teach me."</p><p>     "You're gonna bitch until I do," Kakashi bites back, firmly placing the stone in the webbing of his friend's hand. He helps Obito curl his fingers around the rock, and presses down on his digits to demonstrate pressure. "Like this. Get it now?"</p><p>     Obito looks at where their hands are connected, and is very quick to take his own away. "Yeah yeah, I got it," he blurts, wiping over his mouth with his free hand. "Now do I just, like, lob it, or?"</p><p>     Kakashi almost laughs outright, but he manages to contain it to a suppressed chuckle. He has a half a mind to say 'sure, man, just fucking chuck it', but he holds back just enough to manage not to. "No, dude, it's not a baseball. Throw it like… Kind of like a frisbee you want to be low to the ground."</p><p>     Obito nods his understanding, and does as he's instructed. The stone skips only twice, but it's enough for the older boy to act like he just won the lottery, complete with a jump of excitement and both fists in the air. </p><p>     "<em>Awesome</em>! Did you see that, that was <em>sick</em>, I've never been able to do that before! I bet I can get it to skip a ton of times! How good at this are you, anyway? I'll kick your ass at this rate!" Obito's grin is wide, confident, and a challenge all its own. He seems to almost bounce in place, overjoyed with his own apparent progress. </p><p>     "Good luck with that," Kakashi says dryly, shoving both hands in his pockets. "I've been doing it since I was five. You just started."</p><p>     "So?! Come here then, we'll see who's better at this before we gotta go in!"</p><p>     "You really think you'll win?"</p><p>     "I'll prove it!"</p><p>--</p><p>     Laughter, and tinnitus, ring in Kakashi's ears when he wakes again. His mouth tastes like sand, his stomach has rocks in it, and his throat feels like it's been caked in mud. He gets up, brushes his teeth, and goes to work, because that's what you do even when there's ghosts following you trying to show you their new arrowheads and their new recipes they learned from an old cookbook. You get up, you cough up the sand and mud, and you go to work.</p><p>     You go to work, and you ignore the ghosts that trail needily after. Their voices are a salve in their own right, but their image is stained by trauma untouched. Obito's disappearance, the murder, the arrest - all of it gathers, coagulates and transforms, all into something Kakashi still doesn't understand. It doesn't make sense to him, and he's sure it never will. All he's certain of is that Obito and Rin sometimes cast a spell on his dreams, so that they are rose-colored instead of tinted black, and sometimes they follow him outside the dreams they lock him into. They follow him to Guy's house, to Asuma's, and they follow him to see Naruto and Sakura and Sasuke. They follow him, day in, day out.</p><p>     But he can interact with them when he sleeps, no matter the way. Sometimes it's gentle hands guiding stones across water, and sometimes, it's his own childish voice breaking and cracking as he screams that he didn't kill her, he didn't, he loved her. </p><p>     I didn't kill her, he thinks hours later as he lays on his age-old, fraying couch between shifts at work, I hope he knows I didn't kill her. I hope she told him, when they met again.</p><p>--</p><p>     There are police sirens echoing in the far distance, distorted, screaming in slow motion.</p><p>     There is bright sunlight shining through disheveled curtains, like late morning light, and it puts a glint on the ruins of someone's living room. </p><p>     This room, unfamiliar and destroyed, wraps around its only living occupant. Kakashi sits, barely a boy of fifteen, in the middle of a room he doesn't recognize. There's blood pumping in his ears so loudly he can feel it behind his eyes, his left in particular, as it throbs in time with his pulse. The sirens grow louder. Kakashi can't feel the left side of his face. He can't feel his hands. Something is covering nearly every inch of him, warm and wet and sickeningly sticky, and smells like copper so thickly it coats the back of his tongue. It's everywhere, he realizes, all over his skin, staining everything.</p><p>     Kakashi can very distantly hear people yelling. They sound so far away, so quiet compared to the sound of blood rushing past his eardrums. He doesn't think as he slowly begins to look down at himself, bringing both hands up to inspect them almost dumbly. They're red, he realizes, my hands are red and wet. My nails are red and wet. He looks at his right hand, the object still clasped in it. It's made of metal, sharp and thin, with a sturdy grip. Kakashi thinks it looks like a knife. Why is he holding a knife?</p><p>     His fingers flex and slacken, and the blade drops with a metallic clang. He looks down, again, at his t-shirt and his pants, sticky and warm, and the blood begins to pound louder in his ears. Kakashi looks up and swallows, gingerly feeling his oddly sore face for a mask he doesn't find, eyes wildly searching the room - the sirens were getting louder, the yelling was getting clearer, and oh God he recognized this living room, this is Rin's living room, her home. He looks down again at himself, his breathing starting to speed as his throat starts to squeeze shut, and suddenly his brain realizes what he's covered in. This is warm blood, this is<em> still-warm blood</em>, what happened, where's <em>Rin</em>--</p><p>     Rin, as it happens, was not far. She's laid on her back, head to the side, unmoving.</p><p>     The world moves very quickly after that.</p><p>     There's a bang loud enough to rattle Kakashi's conscience, and a flurry of loud commands. Slowly, the speech begins to register and oh, these are the <em>police</em> and they have their weapons drawn, this is a murder scene and they think he--</p><p>     "No!" Kakashi yells, voice trembling as he raises both hands in the air, "I didn't kill her!" There's not a moment that he can manage his eyes away from her corpse, even as his face is pressed painfully against the hardwood, even as his hands are forced behind his back. "I didn't kill her! I <em>didn't kill her</em>!" It's a truth he spills to the police, to a dead Rin and missing Obito, to God, to his father as he's hauled off the floor and out of the house with a frightening speed. "I didn't hurt her, it wasn't me, <em>I didn't do this</em>!"</p><p>     The sirens are blaring, the sun is sharp and bright, and Kakashi has copper stuck to the inside of his nose. Warmth is still pouring out of the left side of his face, or so it feels. His feet don't move, but he's dragged out by men bigger, older, and stronger. They say nothing, do nothing, but order against resistance as they take him toward the sirens still screeching. People in rubber gloves look at his face, and stare at his left eye. Something is wrong with it. Someone with a flashlight says it looks like a defensive wound from the victim, through gritted teeth. They hate him. He did not kill her. He did not kill her. He did not kill her. He did not kill her. He couldn't hurt her.</p><p>     Kakashi's wound is stitched and treated at the hospital. I didn't kill her, he tells the doctor. They say it took awhile to close it up, with how long and deep the wound was. I didn't kill her, he tells the detective that handcuffs him to the table in the station. The man says he has more questions, even so. I didn't kill her, he says again, quiet, remembering the smell of blood soaking the walls, his clothes. The detective asks if he wants a phone call. Kakashi stares at the dull metal table, wishing he could press the white-hot side of his face to it. </p><p>     "...Minato."</p><p>--</p><p>     Kakashi wakes to the sound of his eight PM alarm with the taste of copper in his mouth, and the sickness of flesh in his stomach. He brushes his teeth again, grabs his wallet, and ignores the way the old scar burns new as he heads to work. He finds himself not frustrated by his nightmares. Just disappointed.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>he didn't kill her.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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